07 Mar 2005

Harnoncourt's Poppea in London

PRACTICALLY my first assignment as a cub critic was to review Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting Zurich Opera’s production of The Coronation of Poppea. That was in 1978, but I still recall the elation I felt at hearing this great Baroque pioneer sweep centuries of dust from Monteverdi’s masterpiece.

L'incoronazione di Poppea

Richard Morrison at the Festival Hall [Times Online, 5 Mar 05]

PRACTICALLY my first assignment as a cub critic was to review Nikolaus Harnoncourt conducting Zurich Opera's production of The Coronation of Poppea. That was in 1978, but I still recall the elation I felt at hearing this great Baroque pioneer sweep centuries of dust from Monteverdi's masterpiece.

There is no conductor alive today with longer experience of performing Monteverdi operas than Nikolaus Harnoncourt. When he was a cellist in the 1950s he played in a performance of Orfeo conducted by Paul Hindemith, and the cycle of all three operas he conducted in stagings by Jean-Pierre Ponelle at the Zurich Opera in the early 1970s played a crucial part in establishing the works in the repertory. Now Harnoncourt has gone back to Zurich for a new production of L'Incoronazione di Poppea. It opened there two weeks ago, and came as a one-off concert performance to the Festival Hall.